Path of the Soul #7: Loving Kindness

Stretching ourselves in our caring for each other is central to our spiritual job description.

The world is a vale of tears, no doubt about it. At the drop of a simple "how are you" anyone can open their big book of loss, disappointment and pain. It's true for all of us, though surely more for some than others. Black threads are woven into the very fabric of every life.

No wonder, then, that the Jewish tradition elevates deeds of loving kindness (chesed) to the highest possible ranking among soul-traits. Only some problems have solutions, but all are alleviated by the loving response of those around us.

In Pirkei Avot (2:1) we learn that: "The world stands on three things: on the Torah, on the service of God, and upon acts of loving kindness." The fact that chesed is one of the three pillars on which the world stands underlines how very important this soul-trait must be.

Chesed is a primary attribute of God. In fact, of the whopping 245 times this word appears in the Torah (telling you something right there), about two-thirds of these instances speak of God's character and actions. God is the Master of chesed, because, as the Psalm states, "The world is built on chesed"(89:3). For God to have created the world at all was nothing short of an act of chesed!

He has told you, O man, what is good! What does your God ask of you, that you do justice, love loving kindness, and walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8

God is also constantly engaged in sustaining all of Creation through acts of chesed. So where is the chesed in the suffering and tears that plague our lives? Even though it may be hard to see, there is great love extended to us at every moment. We are weak, and we all stumble and fall. We transgress against others, against ourselves and against God. And yet we are not snuffed out like a feeble candle, as well we might be. We persist in breathing, our hearts go on beating and we find the strength to rise again because God sustains us. That's God's chesed.

We can learn from God's chesed that what we call loving kindness involves acts that sustain the other. In the Mussar view, there is little value in fostering unconditional good will in your heart and wishing someone well. You have to tap those feelings to reach out your hand with real sustenance to another, by way of money, time, love, empathy, service, an open ear, manual assistance, a letter written, a call made, and on and on. People can and do draw sustenance from many sources.

Yet not all acts that sustain constitute chesed. We do some things out of obligation -- paying taxes sustains programs that sustain people, but it would be a big stretch to call paying taxes an act of chesed. Or we might be repaying goodness done to us, or offering sustenance with a plan of getting something in return. Those motives don't reflect chesed either.

Here the notion of kindness comes back into the picture. Chesed is sustaining action all right, but it has to come out of kindness and compassion, no other motive. That means that acts qualify as chesed only when they are motivated by a spirit of generosity. You are not obligated to do it, you aren't repaying an act done for you, you don't hope to get anything in return -- you are generously reaching beyond those limited acts to give of yourself in a spirit of honest and selfless generosity.

With these considerations in mind, I'd now translate chesed as generous sustaining benevolence. That's more clumsy than the already clumsy "loving kindness," but it conveys so much more than just being nice and wishing well!

Giving in the way of chesed requires that we go beyond the boundaries that are familiar and comfortable to us. We have to stretch into chesed or it isn't chesed. That makes it sensible why the Jewish tradition accords service done to the dead as chesed shel emet, true chesed. Only with a dead body can we have absolutely no hope or chance of a payback for our generosity.

I can already hear somebody saying, yes, but what of the inner feeling people get when they know they are doing something good? Isn't that a "reward" of sorts? There is a joy that comes from doing a mitzvah. Unless you do the act specifically to get that feeling, being joyful in chesed does not invalidate the fact that in giving you had to stretch yourself beyond the boundaries of the usual and the comfortable to offer benevolent sustenance to another, which is how you enter the territory of chesed.

Mussar points out that some people are moved to acts of chesed whenever they meet up with someone in need of their help. Others, however, don't wait for the opportunity to come to them, but rather search out any chance to act generously in ways that sustain others. This is what the Sages meant when they wrote that the way of those who do chesed is to run after the poor (Shabbat 104a).

The demand is to not only do acts of kindness, but to love doing them.

Another way to understand this distinction is to recognize that there are deeds of chesed, and then there are souls that are totally infused with the spirit of chesed. That's the profound quality pointed to in the quote from Micah: "do justice, love loving kindness, and walk humbly with your God." We are not told that we fulfill our spiritual destiny by doing acts of loving kindness but rather by loving those acts. Of course if we love them, we will engage ourselves in doing them, so the doing is still covered, but really only as a spin-off. Our focus is not on the doing but on the quality of the heart that lives within us. Love loving kindness! What a profound demand!

The words of tradition unremittingly remind us that life is not to be lived every man for himself. Hillel puts it, "If I am only for myself, what am I?" (Pirkei Avot 1:14). It is central to our spiritual job description to stretch ourselves to sustain each other, and the most important dimension of that behavior is bearing in your heart love for the very act of caring for the other. Done for any other motive and the act is not chesed and it does not sustain the world, which is the outer mandate of chesed, nor does it move us closer to realizing the very purpose of our souls, which is its inner mandate. But when we get it right, our perfected chesed makes us pious and righteous people (hence the linguistic relationship between chesed and Chasidim).

Focus inwardly and then ask of your heart: enter joyfully into the love of generously sustaining the other. Then put that spirit into action. The heart and the world are called to connection, linked by flowing loving kindness. Succeed there and your world will be totally transformed, within and without.

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About the Author

Dr. Alan Morinis is a popular lecturer on the Jewish Mussar tradition, and the author of "Everyday Holiness" and "Climbing Jacob's Ladder." A Rhodes scholar, he has produced films and taught at several universities. Alan lives in Vancouver, Canada, with his wife of 30 years and their two daughters.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 4

(4)
Trikle Trade,
August 24, 2016 6:35 AM

Acts of Kindness

I was surfing net and fortunately came across this site and found very interesting stuff here. Its really fun to read. I enjoyed a lot. Thanks for sharing this wonderful information.

(3)
suzan,
November 26, 2006 10:25 PM

Beautiful

Excellent lesson on loving kindness

(2)
bob,
October 23, 2006 10:12 AM

convoluted ansd high standards

maybe he is requiring too high a standard and dismissing many mitzvahs as of small importance.

(1)
VictoriaSonnenberg,
October 22, 2006 3:23 PM

Wonderful Article!

I truly enjoyed reading this article! I, too, have always believed that doing a kindness for others is more than an obligation--spiritual or otherwise. I have learned that when one does a kindness out of obligation it usually brings resentment, or even anger. When one does a kindness out of love, it brings true satisfaction to see someone else reap the benefits of what you have done. While that satisfaction is not the reason for doing the kindness, it is a tremendous side benefit of loving others. We cannot show God's love to others, if we don't do it with kindness. I want to always live my life so that others can see God in my actions, and in my life.

Thanks, so much, for this article.

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!